Waiting on Moonbeams

Waiting on Moonbeams

A rising unease
Solitary confinement
A graveyard’s Silence

A walk to the Well
No quenching of thirst ~ parched lips.
Bone dry! Empty! Drought!

A stirring of Mind
Awakened ~ mirage of Flow.
Water on smooth rocks

A hardened struggle
Ambiguity. Break through!
Softly stream the tears.

Beyond that seascape
Lies another ~ entangled.
Jackson Pollock knew.

Swept into dark wood
Eerily profound ~ the Void?
Moonbeams show thy selves.

My name is known here.
I am carved into this Place.
Whittled down ~ shapeless

So much Nothingness
Felt and seen as Somethingness.
Waiting on moonbeams.

Shambles surround me.
Blackness pierces inner space.
Here ~ the Sculptor’s hands.

There ~I Will remain.
Like David in his marble
Formless ~ Becoming.

Very good, Arc.

Since you posted this poem on a public forum, I’m going to infer that you won’t mind if I offer my interpretation.

Your poem resonates a distinct melancholia and loneliness of spirit. You are experiencing some sort of internal struggle, perhaps a midlife crisis. You are searching for your personal oasis. It could also mean that you ran away from somewhere, but had to return back, back to the place you loathe…

Thank you Erik. No mid-live crisis. lol No crisis. More like the Phoenix struggling - refusing to - while at the same time - knowing that she must fly up to that top frond and allow herself to be burned by that Sun. Or, probably more the whittling down, reshaped, transformed. The cutting hurts. I’ve been through it before, more than a few times. I don’t know. Maybe I’m in a pessimistic existentialist mode. :imp:

Arc, i also get a similar feeling as Eric, but with a twist, existential that is. I see an attempt not a crisis to modify, (well You already implied this) existing patters, without sacraficin the shading, the spirituality , as it were in the shady areas, so very alluring a retreat. I don’t feel You abhor, or anything close to that, the idea of returning there, except You fear an eternal return. Fear is the wrong word, and i will leave it in, it’s more like an apprehension, as if You distrust the shadowy places, maybe even in the Freudian sense. but fearing Your own toleration of the thirstfor the light of reason, and what may exist there. Will shadows still protect You there? As in the novel ‘Sheltering Sky’, where the all consuming desert presents a more cfruel, shadeless form of Nature, where thirst for the eternal sunlight is replaced by the need to find shelter. It is not midlife, in Your case, it probably started with you young, in fact, probably very young. It is the change of perceiving this which is more disturbing, than actually understanding this.

I hate to use the son as a metaphore here, but Richard the 3rd , " It is the winter of our discontent, made glorious by this son of York."

And Martha in -Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf -begging, ‘do not kill our son.’

Allusions to the loneliness of existential despair, the kind maybe only Emily Dickinson’s private garden afforded.

I see, I see.

Poetry is a good way to articulate yourself, to achieve catharsis. I’m into poetry myself. I found the charger for my video camera, so I may make some artsy/poetry vids. and upload them to my youtube channel sometime.

I like your style, though; it’s ambiguous and saturnine, but not to the point of being inscrutable.

Book of Love-Love’s Torment

Love’s torments sought a place of rest
Where all might dream and lonely be,
They found there long my desert breast,
And nestled in it’s vacancy.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

asrc, i feel an animus/anima struggle in Your life. I feel a loss of animus, and either a retribution, or a compensation there, where , that seems to have been irrevocably been lost. But remember, this is not real, it can be replaced, it can. I am sure in Your case. Naturer, can set it sgtraight. I think Your divorce really broke You, but no matter, he wasn’t worth it, tell me i was wrong, and if i was wrong, i would not be greatly surprised, but I get the impression of the anima in trouble.

Arc, You need not reply to this, but i feel a strong sense of something along this linhe.

Erik,

Like the water on the mountains see? lol

That’s true. I do at times write a poem as a way to figure things out or as a catharsis. Most of the time, when I’m finished, I’ve been reconciled with whatever is going on within me - sometimes not. As in with this one. But I don’t necessarily think that poetry is to be utilized with this in mind. Perhaps it needs also to be impersonal something brought out into the world to speak to the people - maybe I’m wrong. I’m wrong a lot.

Good luck. You might make me aware when you do them.

,
Much of this poem was/is based on my own sense of ambiguity - inner conflict in the moment but i like ambiguity in poetry. Makes one think - it’s capable of putting them in their own “place” which they may not have been aware of. Poetry is a form of psychological exploration ALSO.
I think that at times a bit of gloom and meloncholy is good for the human soul.

Inscrutable is good - like the mystery of god.

Orb

Hi, my sweet Rumi. :mrgreen: I suppose that one might call it an attempt to modify - yes, one could. It’s also an attempt to understand some particular thing and to transform its nature.

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Yes, there are existing patterns which need to be dissolved or re-wired maybe one can say. By shading do you mean shadow? I would never do away with the shading or the shadow. It’s a part of me just as the natural shade is part of the natural lighting. Have you ever seen - of course you have - a late afternoon park how it lies in shade and in sunlight. It’s perfectly beautiful.

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An eternal return as in over and over again? lol That just may BE the case. It’s part of life, isn’t it - though the scenery may change a bit. I don’t know if I fear it though I wouldn’t welcome it. But still, would have to walk those dark and gloomy streets. But there are some wonderful and beautiful things to be seen in those streets. lol I think I’m becoming unhinged here. O/K

Apprehension is a level of fear to me, Orb. I wouldn’t say that I distrust the shadowy places orbie as much as I distrust my responses to them. If that made sense. They are ambiguous and conflicting - it’s more a question of “where to go from here”.

I think that this poem belongs in the Psychology forum. Only kidding. :laughing:

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But this is just the thing orbie. I want to figure it all out and reconcile with it.

I don’t think I’m looking for protection - I’m looking for understanding and clarity here. True, it started really young. I used to go hide in the closets and behind this great thick curtain in the library or out and up into the playground at night at the orphanage. I’m not uncomfortable with this dark and gloomy place of entanglement - it’s second nature to me. I just need to find a path to get out.
Often enough, sometimes it comes of its own when I’ve stopped looking.

Discontent is a great word to use here.

Am I despairing? I don’t know or don’t quite think so - that’s why the question - the Void? But maybe just a bit outside the boundaries of the event horizon. lol.
I’d say though that it’s just a bit of existential angst and a new growth spurt trying to push its way through.

Damn, now what have I gone and done with my poem? I’ve turned it into a study in psychology. :imp:

Oooooooohhhhh, that was so beautiful, so profound…like a Puccini.

Arcturus wrote:

You silly goose :stuck_out_tongue:

I think it IS. Well, the ancients viewed poetry as a divine madness, that the poet wasn’t even aware of his own utterings - that he or she was inspired by the muses, or gods. I view it more naturalistically, as nature communicating herself through it. All activities, such as poetry, art, music, etc are meant to be cathartic.

Sure thing.

Yes - I agree that melancholia is salubrious sometimes, as a way of psychological exploration. Buttt easy peasy lemon squeezy; it could lead to depression.

Do you like this song?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5anLPw0Efmo[/youtube]

I hear some echoes of Eliot’s Wasteland - the same kind of loss and longing.

Is there a significance to the idiosyncratic capitalization?

I’ll have to read that. Eliot - you mean TS.?

Yes, I was going through one of my long existential moments there. I think that writing is a wonderful catharis, writing poetry helps put things in their proper perspective, helps one figure things out - aside from the fact that I do so love writing poetry. It’s such a strong challenge to me at times. But it’s an exhilarating journey all the same. I wrote a christmas one and put it in here quite a while ago when I was still a christian and a theist - guess what brought me back - a lone seagull. lol

I read somewhere though that art ought not to be so personal - that it should speak to humanity, rise above the personal and speak to what is “real” - in other words, not to focus on one’s self but rather to transcend one’s self and speak to the world - no matter what kind of art it is.

Yes, there is a significance in the IC - I do it to place emphasis on these words - sort of to allow someone to come to some kind of feeling/emotion because of them. I think that capitalized, they have more effect - but I may be wrong - but that’s why I do it.

You looked. :mrgreen:

I get that about the capitals - seen a few other people do it. To me, it looks like German, but I doubt most North Americans would think of that.
It’s absolutely a good idea to read the old guys - not sure i’d characterize TS Eliot as a classic, but he certainly qualifies as antique. Anyway, something of a surrealist, like you… only, of course, he had a lot of time to perfect his craft before the general public read it. (Did you not have to take Murder in the Cathedral in school? It’s a masterpiece, but Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is more fun.) I also recommend W.B. Yeats.

Should poetry be personal or universal? I think that’s a tail-eating snake of a question: if something goes deeply enough into the personal, it hits a universal core, and vice versa. Individual experience and character are made of quite superficial differentiations: we wriggle out of the dark ocean of Life, rear up on our hind legs, walk around a little while, love, hurt, desire, struggle, decline, and wade back in. (Like Odo in Deep Space 9.)

humunculus

You’re a bloody Englishman? O/K about the bloody part. I don’t get what you mean about looking like German.

lol I never thought of myself as a surrealist but maybe I am.
One of my favorite poems is Yeats’ An Irish Airman Foresees His Death. I love that poem.

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Every time i read it, I get the shivers up and down my spine. There is just something so beautiful and profound about it.

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Yes, I think that’s true. It’s a psychic thing (not reading minds). Kind of like the god thingy.

I liked that. Odo came out of the sea? :blush: